Special Delivery: Ice plays havoc with birthing plans

Sarah Roberts

Friday

Feb 22, 2008 at 12:01 AMFeb 22, 2008 at 7:16 PM

Appy Mikel had a clear plan for the birth of her second child: She would be in a hospital, her midwife would be there, and this time, the pain would be dulled by an epidural. Then Mother Nature intervened.

Appy Mikel had a clear plan for the birth of her second child: She would be in a hospital, her midwife would be there, and this time, the pain would be dulled by an epidural.

None of those panned out, however, when she went into labor in the wee hours of Sunday morning, eight days past her due date.

However, Appy and husband Rustin realized that Mother Nature wasn’t going to cooperate while they gathered their bags for the hospital and waited for a neighbor to arrive to watch their 17-month-old son, Joey.

The thick sheets of ice coating Burr Oak Road in their wooded neighborhood just outside Roscoe were too much for even the sturdiest four-wheel drive. Debbie Lawrence, the neighbor scheduled to baby-sit, got about halfway to the Mikels’ house before her Blazer spun out and got stuck. Lawrence walked back to her house and, with her husband, Larry, trudged the quarter of a mile through the woods to the Mikels’ home.

‘Most stressful day’ of her life
Meanwhile, the Mikels, sensing trouble, had called Appy’s parents and an ambulance.

The parents, who live less than a mile away, spun their car into a snowbank on the way there. The ambulance and an accompanying police car paused farther down the road, unable to gain traction on the ice.

Someone eventually called in two snowplows to work on the road while a police officer, six paramedics, the Lawrences and Appy’s parents crawled and skidded up the steep hill leading from the road to the Mikels’ home.

They found Appy on the couch, doubled over with regular contractions and a “freaked-out” Rustin rushing around looking for towels and scissors on the advice of their midwife.

“It was the most stressful day of my life,” Appy, 25, said. “My husband had the midwife on speakerphone on one cell and a 911 operator on speaker on the other cell phone.
Everyone was trying to talk at once, and I was having contractions."

As everyone was brainstorming ways to get Appy down to the ambulance, which couldn’t make it up the Mikels’ driveway, Appy’s father noticed the decorative toboggan the Mikels have hanging by their fireplace.

The group decided to load Appy onto the toboggan and pull her through the woods to the road where the ambulance was waiting.

After 40 minutes, which included Appy sending her husband back upstairs to find something to wrap her in other than her favorite comforter, the group bundled up Appy and lifted her onto the toboggan.

They had pulled her a few feet when one of the paramedics ushered everyone back in the house — they weren’t going to make it to the ambulance in time.

“The lead paramedic said ‘You can’t do this. You could have this baby in the middle of the woods, and we only have one flashlight,’” Appy said.

‘It was really amazing’
A few minutes later, Appy found herself lying on the pullout couch in her guest bedroom, looking up at four male paramedics who, while they seemed a bit nervous, she said, turned out to be “the most amazing birth coaches.”

“I really still thought I was going to get an epidural; I really wanted one. But then I realized, no, it was not going to happen,” Appy said. “It really hit me then that I’m delivering in my guest bedroom. But they held my hands and encouraged me ... they were so calm and reassuring. It was really amazing.”

At 4:46 a.m., Carolyn MillieAnn Mikel arrived, weighing 8 pounds, 2 ounces, and measuring 20 inches. By that time, the snowplows had cleared the roads enough for the ambulance to reach the home, and Appy and the baby were taken to Rockford Memorial Hospital for checkups. Mother and daughter are doing fine and were released from the hospital Tuesday.

Big brother Joey, who slept through the whole thing, seemed happy to greet his new sister. A few days after the birth, Joey said his first word: “baby.”

The family met up with some of the helpers from that night Wednesday at the Harlem-Roscoe Fire Department, where the paramedics saw baby Carolyn for the first time since her birth. Appy is planning a larger reunion sometime in the near future, although she’s not sure she’ll be able to find an adequate way to express her gratitude.

“How do you thank someone for giving you such a great experience?” she said. “They were just amazing.”

Sarah Roberts can be reached at 815-987-1354 or smobert@rrstar.com.

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